Sparks Will Fly
by Munchieees
Summary: Did a mysterious stranger who crossed his path 17 summers ago make or break our favourite sociopath? Either way, back in Baker Street, nothing could have prepared John Watson for what he was about to discover...
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This is a new story and a new fandom, so I'm decidedly nervous about how this is going to be received! Writing this was an experience - though it's been a refreshing change to be able to use colloquialisms for once, as those of you (if any) who have read my recently-completed story Dangerous Liaisons will understand! Anyhoo, as always, any feedback whatsoever will be wholeheartedly appreciated, whether it's good or bad...I'm always looking to improve! :) This is my take on Sherlock's past and allows for a large amount of creative licence. I'm sorry if you feel I didn't explain things in enough detail or that my version of events is just not faesible, but I was anxious of making it too long-winded...anyway, that's what reviews are for, so if you feel that way please do let me know. **

**I should also probably inform you that the rating of M will most definitely be justified later on in the story. Just as a warning, there will be slash, most likely violence and was planning for a bit of drug use as well! **

**I hope you enjoy reading! **

**M**

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><p><em>Two weeks after their reported disappearance from their family's home in South Kensington, the bodies of twins Katherine and Kristina Parker-Williamson were found by police in the early hours of this morning. Scotland Yard's Detective Inspector Geoff Lestrade later released a statement confirming the discovery and stated that an investigation is already underway. <em>

"_We have our very best people on this case," DI Lestrade told our reporter. "At the moment it's unclear as to how the girls died, but I can assure you on behalf of every member of my team that we will be working around the clock until such a time that the person responsible for such an atrocity is prosecuted." _

_For those unfamiliar with the Parker-Williamson case, 4 year-old twin girls Katherine and Kristina were first reported missing by their mother Evelyn on October 5__th__ of this year. More on this chilling story as it develops._

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><p>Four years old. What a bloody nightmare. I shifted uncomfortably inside the blue scrubs an unsmiling Sally Donovan had thrust in my direction as we'd arrived, trying to take in the scene before me and struggling to keep a sudden flurry of violent emotions hidden where the forensics team (and Sherlock Holmes in particular) would not notice them.<p>

The two little girls lay side-by-side on the floor, positioned on their backs so the whole room could see the twin faces with tear tracks still visible through the dirt smothering their cheeks. Their eyes were closed as if they were sleeping, only these girls would not be waking up. I closed my own eyes briefly. This was beyond comprehension – the most brutal, horrific, mindlessly fucked-up situation I'd ever borne witness to. For Sherlock Holmes, however, this was just another day.

Lestrade had been on the phone at seven in the morning with a message for Sherlock – an address and a "please come quickly, I'm totally lost without you". A half hour in a taxi had brought us to an abandoned house somewhere near Putney. The whole place smelt of damp; mould and decay crawling up the walls, rooms downstairs and up plunged into eerie darkness. As per usual, Sherlock had rushed out the door without so much as telling me what Lestrade needed him for, so I was left to guess the finer details. But I'd run with Sherlock long enough to know it would be a murder, and I remember thinking as we pulled up in the cab that this house would be a bloody terrible place to die – all alone in the cold with the darkness closing in around you. I'd been following the Parker-Williamson case via the papers, as had almost everyone in London, and it was alarming to see how the story had affected the public. Young mothers would hold their children's hands that little bit tighter, as if afraid they would be snatched away in broad daylight, and it had been days since anyone had seen a child out and about in South Ken. Children all over the world were kidnapped and killed every day; it was a shocking but very real statistic which did little to take the edge off this case. _Two little girls_. Fuck.

"How long?" Sherlock's voice was pitched lower than usual as he bent over the first of the bodies, crouching on his haunches like a lanky dark-haired cat waiting to pounce.

"Less than an hour when we found them." DI Lestrade looked paler than usual and had a thumbnail in his mouth. He was watching Sherlock closely, and I wondered then whether he'd dragged us out here because he needed Sherlock's help or because he couldn't handle working this case alone. Neither option would have surprised me – when the bodies of two _kids_ turn up, it ceases to be just another open-and-shut case. Indeed, this discovery seemed to have affected the whole of Lestrade's team; even Anderson who had somehow resisted the urge to make snide comments over Sherlock's presence when we'd rocked up in our cab. I should have guessed then that there was something not quite right...

Long fingers clothed in plastic gloves, Sherlock ran his hands over the first body with as much care (in my opinion) as if he was perusing a cut of rump steak for Sunday dinner.

"They weren't killed here," Sherlock said, straightening up. "They were moved, perhaps half an hour after death."

"How can you tell?"

The little girls wore matching button-up jackets, and I noticed Sherlock had un-poppered them from the top. Beneath the material, previously hidden by the cut of the coats, their skin was peppered with ugly black bruising. Bloody hell...

"Collars folded and buttoned up," Sherlock said, waving an arm as though Lestrade's questioning was levels beneath him. "To hide the bruising. If they'd died here, the killer wouldn't have bothered." He knelt back down. "John?"

This was my cue. Feeling as though I was moving on autopilot, I stepped closer to Sherlock and the two girls, knelt down and applied my doctor's hands to the situation. Cause of death was fairly obvious, or so it appeared to me – the girls had pale skin, and the contrast of dark bruising in the shape of handprints around their necks told me all I needed to know.

"Strangulation," I told him, and it took almost all I had to keep my voice from wavering. Sherlock just nodded.

"Quite right." He looked to Lestrade. "We're looking at maybe a twenty-four hour margin between time of death and time of delivery, as it were." He smirked slightly, clearly amused by his own phrasing, and as always oblivious to the dark scowl I could feel gathering on my face. "Bruising to that degree wouldn't have formed for a good while."

Lestrade nodded grimly. He was looking at me. "I hate to ask, Doctor – but any immediate signs of sexual abuse?"

"Oh I would say most definitely." Sherlock answered for me, butting right in before I could begin to speak. He dropped once more to his knees and swept back the loose material of Kristina Parker-Williamson's little sundress. I looked away in disgust, but not before I'd seen the worst – more bruising covering her thighs. Handprints. Finger-marks.

"We'd need a post-mortem to know for sure," I said through gritted teeth.

Lestrade nodded, but I could tell Sherlock had irked him too. Somehow, the nature of this case had thrown a lot of factors into sharp relief – this was the murder of two little girls we were dealing with, and yet Sherlock seemed determined as usual to take it lightly.

"Anything else you can tell us?" Lestrade asked Sherlock, who was still bent over the first body examining dirty marks on the clothing with uninterrupted focus. "I'll take anything you've got, but make it quick – we've got to get the photographs finished and everything packed up before the press get their muscle in."

"There has to be more, there _has_ to be..." Sherlock leant in close, aligning his nose with the girl's neck and taking a deep sniff. I saw his eyes dilate. What had he found? More to the point, what had he found that was would make _sniffing_ the body of a four year old girl even halfway to acceptable? "Oh, yes..."

"What, Sherlock?" I asked, unusually snappy, but then who could blame me? I'd never approved of my friend's offhand attitude to murder cases, but this really took the piss.

"Clever. That _is_ impressive presence of mind..."

"No time like the present," Lestrade said pointedly.

Sherlock looked up. "Carbolic soap," he said. "Both bodies, scrubbed with carbolic soap and water..." He was grinning.

"Explain to me why that's a good thing," Lestrade said irritably. "As if it's not bad enough we've given the killer time enough to get away, it turns out the bodies have been scrubbed with bloody carbolic to destroy any potential DNA evidence!"

"Exactly." Sherlock's eyes were shining. "Nothing's ever straightforward when the killer is considerate enough to spice up what would otherwise be an uncomplicated case." He leapt to his feet, actually bouncing a little, and clapped his hands together. "Uncomplicated cases are boring. A child killer always makes for an exciting ride; just like children themselves – they delight in playing me around!"

"Are you kidding me?" I growled. "Two little girls are _dead_, probably raped to cap it off and you're talking about exciting?"

Something inside me had finally snapped. I was sick of it: sick of his brusque approach; of the way he was speaking about the murderer of these two little girls as though he had killed them simply to provide the wall in 221b with a little relief. It didn't matter how many cases we worked on together – I would never be used to the way he could find the positive side to a brutal double murder or describe a serial killer with two-dozen victims under his belt as a "genius" as opposed to the more everyday term of "raging psychopath". It was disturbing enough for someone like Lestrade to witness, but for me -a doctor and soldier who had dedicated his whole life to serving and protecting others, who had both brought about and prevented death on numerous occasions- to see this self-satisfied bastard stomping all over the deaths of innocent people was pretty close to intolerable. Worse than that was how he could just switch off his emotions when and where it suited him, acting as though the death of two innocent children was all water under the bridge. It really grated on me – it was barely even human!

Sherlock was watching me closely, which only saw to irritate me further. I hated it when he looked at me that way; as though I was another of his test subjects under constant scrutiny and observation. Given time he would have said something, but I was far from finished. Before I could stand to hear him speak to me again, to offer an explanation, I had to get it all out.

"Can't you at least try to put yourself in their shoes for one minute?" I demanded. "You're four years old, subjected to a violent assault by a strange man who later kills your twin sister while you watch, waiting for it to be your turn. How the hell do you think that would feel, Sherlock?"

"Quite terrifying I should imagine," Sherlock said casually, as though we were discussing football scores or the weekend weather in Glasgow. "But seeing as how I am not a four year old girl and never shall be, John, I hardly see the relevance."

I wanted to hit him. God knows, if it had been anybody else I would have. I took a deep breath in, trying to picture Sherlock as a woman or a very old man – anything to keep me from breaking his nose then and there.

"Just do me a favour," I said to him. "Try for a little empathy for once in your life. I mean for God's sake, Sherlock, think of the parents!"

"Yes, yes, they've lost their daughters." Sherlock had the nerve to tut. "It's all very tragic, I know."

"Well do you not even care that some poor sod is going to have to explain to them their twin daughters have been murdered and sexually abused?"

"Point me in the right direction and I'll do it myself." Sherlock cleared his throat. "'Your daughters are dead. Give me two days and I shall have their killer for you in a shiny silver prison cell'."

"Listen to yourself!" I was shouting now, so angry my vision was clouding over with red spots. A little voice inside my head was telling me I was overreacting; that it was stupid to get this wound up over Sherlock Holmes and his stubborn indifference to murder, but I couldn't seem to help myself. All I could see was the parents of those two little girls ten years from now, still sobbing against each other over the loss they'd never been able to recover from. "Just so I know, is the concept of 'tact' completely unfamiliar to you, or do you just choose to piss all over it for kicks?"

"What makes you think hearing a sugar-coated version of events will make them any easier to accept?" Sherlock demanded, his voice still infuriatingly calm. If it was at all possible, I was growing more and more pissed by the second; riled by how easily he could remain calm. "Surely in these cases, the decent thing to do is..."

"Decency?" I was done with shouting; my voice had dropped to a level I felt even Sherlock Holmes would be able to recognise as dangerous. "No way, Sherlock – don't you dare talk to me about decency. You don't know the meaning of the word!"

"If it bothers you so much, there's really no reason for you to say," said Sherlock crisply, and now I could hear the venomous edge to his voice. But it fell upon deaf ears as I ripped off my rubber gloves and threw them at his feet.

"Fine. I'll move my stuff out today shall I?" He had been talking about the crime scene, but that didn't matter anymore. I was throwing my towel in; the end of my tether had been reached.

"The extra space would be much appreciated." His voice was still a monotone, not a hint of anger to be heard.

I shook my head. "I'll be gone by the time you get home!"

"Alright, you two," Lestrade butted in, and I half expected him to push inbetween us. "When you're done with the lover's tiff, I've got an investigation to run. Let's remember where we are..."

Sherlock and Lestrade were both looking at me like I was a bomb on a rapidly-decreasing timer. After all the shouting, the house which had become Katherine and Kristina Parker-Williamson's final resting place seemed even more silent than before. As the red mist began to clear, it began to dawn on me just how many people I'd made an arse of myself in front of –Sherlock, Lestrade and most of the Metropolitan Police's homicide division to name but a few. I could see the headlines now: _'Lunatic Doctor Causes a Scene on Police Time!' ... 'Army Service Too Much For Scotland Yard Lackey!' ... _The list wore on.

Lestrade moved first, placing himself between me and Sherlock and resting a forbidding hand on my arm. He'd be sure to muscle in if I went for Sherlock, and honestly I didn't fancy my chances. Maybe two years ago I could have taken him... Now, I wasn't so sure. The edge of my anger was dying now, and I thought I could survive without smacking my best friend, tempting though it still seemed. I flexed my fingers carefully, inwardly counting to ten.

"We can finish up if you need to take a break, Doctor. No, I'm not throwing you out," he said, seeing I was about to argue. "I just thought you might appreciate a moment." He lowered his voice, but I didn't doubt that Sherlock could still hear him. Perhaps Lestrade wanted him to. "Don't think on it, John – you're not the first one who's been tempted to give him a good pop, and guaranteed you won't be the last!"

I nodded. I was still seething, and being in the same room as Sherlock and those poor murdered girls was only making it worse. Lestrade was right – I had to go before I did something I'd regret.

I cast one last look at Sherlock. He'd turned away from me and was crouched once again over the girl's bodies. Lestrade was watching him too.

"Are you going to be OK?" he asked in the same low voice.

"Yeah, yeah..." I cleared my throat, trying for a little perspective.

As I left the room, it was to find an audience had gathered. Half a dozen coppers clad in their blue forensics scrubs had congregated on the stairs, Anderson among them, and Sally Donovan was all but pressed up against the keyhole. They all shifted uncomfortably as I approached, and walking down the stairs I could feel their eyes on me. I caught Anderson's gaze as I passed and found it all too easy to guess what he was thinking: _'What did I tell you? Psychopath. Now it's rubbing off on you too!'_

I pulled off my scrubs, cramming them into the sterile bag offered me by a uniformed blonde in the downstairs hallway, and stomped out the front door into the street. It was barely light outside and freezing cold. A five minute walk would take me to the main road where I'd be able to hail a cab, and as I went I could see my breath hanging in the air before me.

Once I'd put a good mile between myself and Sherlock, I'd calmed down enough to start thinking about what I was going to do next. Though my anger had more or less abated, it had been replaced by a disposition stormier than I'd felt in years, and though the pretty lady cab driver kept trying to catch my eye in the rear-view mirror, I still couldn't raise a smile. I looked at my watch – 8:15. Too early for a lunch date, but perhaps Sarah would fancy some breakfast if I dropped round for her... It was a moment before I remembered – she was in Birmingham til Monday morning at a conference. Bugger it. I decided that the first thing I wanted was a shower. That crime scene and the two dead girls had left me feeling inexplicably dirty. I wanted to scrub myself from head to toe; purge my skin and my body of the smell of that house and the sight I didn't see myself recovering from quickly. Perhaps a shower would wash away all traces of my row with Sherlock too... I shook my head. It was too early in the day and I was still too hacked off to be feeling repentant. Nonetheless, a shower was what I needed right now; a shower and a stiff drink. And I could find both of them back home – 221b Baker Street.

* * *

><p>"Morning, Doctor Watson! I didn't hear you leave earlier?"<p>

Almost a year it had been since I'd first moved in, and Mrs Hudson was still addressing me as 'Doctor'. That said, I was still calling her 'Mrs Hudson', as was Sherlock who had known her far longer. In any case, I wasn't in the mood to make pleasantries and in stomping up the stairs past her without a word, slamming the door in my wake, I think I said as much.

On the other side of the door of Flat B, I breathed an enormous sigh of frustration. So much for forgetting about Sherlock – our flat was strewn left, right and centre with his crap; so much of it that a visitor to our humble abode would be under the impression Sherlock Holmes lived here alone. From an outsider's point of view, John Watson had never set foot in this flat. It certainly didn't feel like John Watson was here now. I felt spaced out, exhausted beyond measure, and alien in my own home. Every time I breathed inwards, I could small Sherlock's narcissism, his egotism, and the sociopathic personality he continually used as a shield to hide the fact that in reality he was little more than a hyper-intellectual, self-righteous bastard! I tried to tell myself he could help it; that his behaviour was classifiable as symptoms of a serious psychological disorder, but nothing it seemed could thwart my anger. Sherlock never thought of anyone except himself... so why would I even feel like I belonged here at all? I sighed again and groaned. The shower could wait – I wasn't going to find the release I so craved inside a bottle of shampoo...

I habitually kept the tequila hidden in the same cupboard as the sink cleaner – one place I knew Sherlock was unlikely to ever go searching. I had to clear a space on the worktop; Sherlock had left phials, dished and other untouchables all over the place, as per bloody usual. Git.

I poured a measure of liquid gold into a chipped West Ham mug (a Christmas gift from Harry and the only drinking receptacle I deemed untouched from Sherlock's kitchen experiments) and lifted it to my lips. I had studied dependence on alcohol as well as clinical and chronic depression at medical school, but no amount of studies could have stopped us from drinking ourselves. There was no escape from the fact that in our darkest moments, a little shot of self-destruction was the best (and in some cases only) medicine we knew of.

I lifted the tequila bottle once more to pour a second glassful, grimacing as I remembered I had promised to be out of the flat by tonight. Maybe if I was passed out by the time Sherlock made it home, I wouldn't have to deal with it until tomorrow...

"Tempting though it might be, John, I regret to tell you the long-term relief will be only marginal..."

I jumped a good foot in the air at the sounds of the voice, familiar as it was, and sloshed copious amounts of tequila out of the bottle all over the kitchen worktop.

A man stood behind me, leaning casually against the kitchen doorframe. It was only half eight in the morning, but my visitor -in his spotless grey business suit and eyes characteristically bright and beady- might well have been up for hours. In his right hand he held a BlackBerry, in his left a copy of the morning paper. There was no need for introductions: I knew the man well, and in any case, the family resemblance between him and his brother spoke volumes.

"Mycroft." I managed a weak smile. "You surprised me...hello!"

"After eleven months of a flatshare with my brother I would have thought you, Doctor Watson, were beyond shocking!" Mycroft offered me a hand which I shook, over the initial astonishment of finding my flatmate's older brother in my kitchen. How had he got in anyway? I was sure I'd locked the door...

"Can I get you something – tea? Coffee?" I asked, sounding far more polite than I felt. Mycroft had eyes and ears all over London, and if he'd come here simply to lecture me about Sherlock, I was sorely tempted to tell him to fuck off.

"Just a glass of water will be fine, thank you."

I was stumped for what I should use as a glass. There was nothing left in the kitchen that I could say for certain hadn't played host to bodily fluids or dangerous chemicals sometime in the not-so-distant past. _'Eye of newt and toe of frog...'_My kitchen was like a bloody witch's cauldron! Behind me, Mycroft cleared his throat.

"The glass tumbler to the left of the microwave I think, John..."

I checked it. Seemed clear enough. If he was willing to drink from it, that was good enough for me. Tequila bottle and chipped mug in hand, I swept through to the lounge and threw myself down in the armchair with the union flag cushion. I knew well enough that Mycroft would follow me.

"You probably have some questions as to why I am here." The oldest Holmes slapped the newspaper down on the coffee table, open so I could see today's top story. The smiling faces of Katherine and Kristina stared out at me from below the headline, and I had to look away. My bad mood was back with a vengeance. How lucky it was I held in my hands the perfect solution...

"Particularly vicious case, this one," Mycroft said, gesturing the paper with his free hand. "I would have expected Sherlock and yourself to be all over it by now. Thought it would be right up your alley..."

"Sherlock seemed to be enjoying himself," I said irritably, scowling down at the still empty mug in my hand and wondering if it would be too impolite to pour and drink another measure while my guest was watching.

Mycroft smiled. "So I gather..." He began to scroll through information pictured on the screen of his BlackBerry. "'Try for a little empathy for once in your life'..." He glanced upwards at me, then back again to his phone. "' Can't you at least try to put yourself in their shoes for one minute?'... And finally, my personal favourite: 'Don't you dare talk to me about decency. You don't know the meaning of the word'..." Mycroft slipped his BlackBerry into an interior jacket pocket. "You seem surprised, John," he said. "Surely you didn't expect this little spat to go completely unnoticed? I should have thought that most of London could hear you!"

So it _was_ Sherlock after all. I should have guessed. Mycroft Holmes was every bit as nosy, meddlesome and intrusive as his brother was, and both possessed very similar ideas when it came to privacy. How in the name of _hell_ had he managed to bug Lestrade's crime scene? No doubt it was illegal. No doubt Mycroft would find a way around it. The key difference between Sherlock's officious behaviour and his brother's was that Mycroft had enough power under his belt to get away with it!

"Look, Mycroft," I said, struggling to keep my voice level and jovial, but not managing all too well. "I don't know how you do what you do or why, but you have to understand..."

"As to how," Mycroft cut in, "to tell you that would be a matter of extreme risk to national and international security. As to why, well...that will be easily explainable if you will just be patient."

"If this is going to be about this morning," I said through gritted teeth, "I really don't want to talk about it."

Mycroft lifted a hand graciously. "There will be no need for you to talk, John, just as long as you are able to listen."

I considered. I had nothing better to do, but this was a matter of principle! I was fed up with the Holmes brothers thinking they could come and go as they please, 'borrow' and hack into my computer, listen into my private conversations and then turn up unannounced to give me a hard time over them. My brain was a fat kid caught between a sticky bun and a jam doughnut – half of me wanted nothing more than to throw Mycroft Holmes out with the knowledge there was at least one person in the world that he couldn't lord it over. But the other half (the half irrevocably tampered with by Sherlock) wanted to hear what this smug twat had to say. Whatever the reason for his interference was, I hoped for his sake it was good, as I made up my mind to let him speak.

"I know you're a busy man, John, so let me cut to the chase." Mycroft set his water glass down on the coffee table beside the newspaper and looked me straight in the eye. "Perhaps now is the time to come clean and tell you that today's little display was not the first disagreement I have observed between you and Sherlock." The foreboding look in his eye was the only thing which kept me from arguing. "However, today I believe was the first time either one of you have raised the possibility of moving out of your shared...premises." He looked around him, a customary grimace on his face. I felt a stab of fierce loyalty to this flat – my home, despite what I had told Sherlock. Anyone would have thought Mycroft lived in a four-storey palace. In fact, from what Sherlock had told me, four-storey palace was not far off!

"And so I came down here, at great personal expense might I point out, to enquire as to whether that was still your intention," Mycroft finished.

"Why did you bother?" 'Great personal expense'... I wasn't sure where my contempt of Mycroft had come from, but suspected the most responsibility would fall to Sherlock.

"Because I would like to recommend, respectfully of course, that you stay." Mycroft reached inside his jacket and removed a chequebook. I had seen it once before in my life, under what appeared to be very similar circumstances. "If recommendation alone proves insufficient..." He flashed me a thin-lipped smile. "Well then I'm sure we can come to an arrangement to suit all parties."

"I told you before, I don't want your money." Mrs Holmes, whoever she was, had a lot to answer for. Having produced two sons -one who believed people's feelings could be compensated with money and another who had yet to work out that people _possessed_ feelings to be compensated, I hoped she was proud of her work!

Mycroft was staring, but I refused to budge. Finally, the chequebook was returned to its pocket and the tension between us lifted.

"I hope if that is your attitude, that you have decided to stay put without the incentive." Mycroft sounded cheery, almost amused by my decision. "Might I say how pleasant it is to see your loyalty to your friends has not diminished these eleven months...?"

"This isn't about loyalty," I said, "I just don't want, or need your money."

"Aha I see." Mycroft smiled once more, and I was reminded of a crafty fox sitting in the middle of a cage of rabbits. In short, he knew he had me cornered. "You've made alternative sleeping arrangements already have you?"

"There are places I can go," I said defensively, but it was all an act. I didn't want to leave Baker Street, and furious as I still was, I didn't want to leave Sherlock either. The man was more than my flatmate – he was my closest friend. But how could I go back now? The damage had been done, and I was going to have a hard time on my hands convincing Sherlock. If my doubt had shown on my face, Mycroft did not comment. He was on his BlackBerry yet again, clearing his throat as he began to speak.

"Indeed there are..." With one long finger, he began to scroll. "Let me see... Ah yes. Your sister – Harriet Emily Watson, four years your junior, currently residing 151 Warwick Street, Sandhurst, Devonshire..." He glanced up. "A little far afield perhaps. Well what about closer to home... Here we go – Doctor Sarah Button, thirty-one years of age, currently residing 71c Hirst Street, Westminster." He smiled. "Far closer..."

"How...How are you doing that?"

"One of the many benefits of occupying a position in government, John," Mycroft said, and for the first time I felt on edge, as though he were threatening me. "Every man, woman and child's details at your fingertips – you just have to know the right people, and then pick someone at random..." He snapped his fingers. "Names, Current address, old addresses, profession, date of birth, place of birth, family members, banking details, National Insurance..." He clicked a button and began to read again. "Jonathan Henry Watson, Doctor and ex-army medic, born 27th May 1974 in Richmond Upon Thames, London, to Henry and Elizabeth Watson, both deceased – Henry on 18th December 1995, Elizabeth more recently on 3rd March 2008." He paused for breath. "One sister -Harriet Emily, recently divorced from a Miss Clara Henderson. Currently residing 221b Baker Street, London borough of Westminster, known associates – Mr Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective in liaison with Scotland Yard Police Service. Took and passed driver's test in 1993 after four failed attempts. Dear, dear John! One known arrest, dated nine months ago – one count of vandalism and damage to public property, for which the offender received twenty-five hours of community service and..." I saw one corner of his mouth twitch. "...an Anti Social Behaviour Order." Mycroft cleared his throat, clearly struggling to regain his composure. "Patron of Barclays Bank, current account number..."

"Yes, alright, alright!" I had a nasty suspicion my mouth was hanging open as if on a hinge. Never again would I ridicule those who wanted fingerprints taken off record after arrest; with Mycroft Holmes on the job, people had good reason to be paranoid! My insides felt like scrambled egg, torn as I was between outrage and alarm that one of the most powerful and influential men in Britain was reading my life story to me like it was the menu of our local Chinese takeaway. This couldn't be happening – it was just too surreal. My eyes fell on the BlackBerry Mycroft still grasped tightly in his hand. Did he have the details of everyone in the country stored on that thing, or was it a privilege he kept reserved especially for me?

"What are you going to do with that?" I asked, nodding towards the phone with some fear of what the answer would be.

"The same as I would with anybody's information, John – absolutely nothing whatever!" Mycroft slipped his BlackBerry back into his jacket. "This kind of data is worthless for any practical purpose, but the things we learn while uncovering it..." He chuckled.

"You can delete it then," I said staunchly. "If you're not going to blackmail me with it...what's the point?"

"Sentimental value?" Mycroft said, an unconscious twinkle in his dead grey eyes. "That _was_ a joke, John, though I did come across a rather amusing school photograph attached to one file I might well pass along to Sherlock in the near future..."

"Why are you doing this?" I demanded. "Why me? I'm just John Watson!" I buried my head in my palms, trying to massage out the pain which had been gathering beneath my temples. "John Watson," I repeated, as if the more I said it, the truer it would be; as if I needed convincing. "I'm nobody special..."

"To the rest of the world, perhaps no," Mycroft said. He looked down from his full height – a rather impressive feat. "To my brother, however, you are somebody rather special indeed, which in reality means that you, John Watson, are of Code Blue importance to me too...Let me finish," he told me sternly. "It will not have escaped your notice that Sherlock has a shall we say _difficult_ time expressing his emotions..."

Understatement of the bloody century!

"...What you may not be aware of however is that _you,"_ Mycroft pointed a finger accusingly in my direction, "as of the 8th of January this year became the first person in an extreme length of time to evoke from him a municipal, empathetic response of any kind." Mycroft cocked an eyebrow amusedly. "Blood from a stone, John...I must say, I'm impressed!"

January 8th? What had happened on January 8th? I racked my brains for the answer. Oh right. The swimming pool. Moriarty. The bomb. My clothes on the floor. I could hear the Irishman's insane laughter; see the panic in Sherlock's eyes as the red light of the sniper hovered over my forehead...

"Even _if_ that's true," I said, playing for time so I could try and get my head around what Mycroft was telling me. "Even if... why is that such a surprise to you? We're friends..."

"Indeed you are," Mycroft said mysteriously.

"You're not answering my questions," I said, my voice rising as anger broke through the surface.

"My apologies..." Mycroft sipped at his glass. "Please, go ahead."

"Why do you have all my details on that thing?"

"As I told you before, you are extremely important to me at present. You have become close to Sherlock, and security necessitated I read your file through thoroughly."

"But _why_ am I important?" My head was aching now worse than ever. I didn't understand...

"I don't think you understand the significance of what I am saying, John." Mycroft stepped up in front of my chair and knelt so our eyes were on the same level. "You are the first person Sherlock Holmes has trusted in _seventeen years_. You are his first friend in _seventeen years._ Now consider the importance of that."

"He's an unsociable bastard and borderline sociopath who..." I trailed off, looking hard at Mycroft. "Seventeen years?" I asked in disbelief. "He hasn't had a friend in..."

"Just how much has my brother told you about his past, John?"

I considered. What _had_ Sherlock told me about his past? I knew he'd been to university – Cambridge I think, where he'd studied chemistry and criminal psychology. I knew he was the youngest child; that Mycroft was seven years older; and that they had been raised in a rambling manor house in the country. I knew both Mr and Mrs Holmes were dead and had been for some years. In short, I knew the basics and nothing more. Beside me, Mycroft smiled, and an involuntary shiver went down my spine, feeling as though my mind had just been read.

"As I suspected."

I shrugged. "He doesn't like to make small-talk..."

"And nor do I," Mycroft said, and this time I couldn't miss how his voice had hardened. The gloves were off now – Holmes meant business! "Which is why I came down here, John – to..."

"...Bribe me?"

"...Inform you," Mycroft almost snarled, "of just how much your presence here means to my brother in the hope that that knowledge would change your mind about leaving."

"I'm not his husband, Mycroft," I steamed, horribly aware of my flushing cheeks. "You can control Sherlock's life if he'll let you, but not mine, do you hear me? If I want to leave, then I'll bloody well leave!"

"_If_ you want to leave, John..." I had no answer to that. My pretence would only take me so far against the older brother of a hyper-intelligent deducing machine; I knew he could see right through me. I sighed, not looking forward to talking my way out of this one without admitting Mycroft was right, but he got there first.

"I know his behaviour is frustrating to you, John, compassionate as you are, but _please_, if you would allow me to explain the reason behind it... it might surprise you to know that whatever psychological disorder Sherlock has told you he suffers from is not the sole reason..."

'Please'. After eleven months with Sherlock, not a word I was overly used to hearing! It still struck me as odd that Mycroft was here; especially as it appeared to be for nothing more than to convince me not to move out of 221b. What was this? The upper-class's answer to 'I'll get my brother on you'?

"I don't know what to do anymore..." I hadn't realised the words had come out until I saw the half triumphant, half strangely sympathetic, 100% predatory expression on Mycroft's face.

"Then let me explain to you why my brother is the way he is." Mycroft's voice could have put an insomniac into a coma. "Or rather, why he is the way he pretends to be..."

"Pretends to be?"

"A magician's greatest trick," said Mycroft "is fooling his audience into watching the one hand when in reality the truth lies in the other." He straightened up with a slight wince and sat down instead in the chair opposite my own. "Sherlock's unsociability, his lack of empathy, his cold, unyielding character, and in particular this brand of 'sociopath' he seems so keen to adopt - All an elaborate shield I'm afraid, which he has built up around himself to hide the vulnerability beneath. A long time ago now, a great personal trauma befell Sherlock – one which altered him for what I once feared would be an irrevocable period of time."

"But why do I come into all this?" I asked weakly.

"Because I have good reason to believe that Sherlock has been on the road to recovery since he met you," Mycroft said. "You're making him better, John, even though you might not realise it, you are..."

"Better how?"

"You saw the look in his eye that day in January, John; that was no coincidence. He's changing..."

"Changing as in he might be able to _feel_?" I looked up, unable to keep the hope from my voice that my flatmate might yet prove to be a decent human being. If Mycroft was right and his problem _was_ merely the result of a long-buried trauma, then as much as it pained me to admit it even to myself, there was really nobody better to help him recover than me. Patients responded better to people they trusted, and I had the necessary training to boot. I suddenly wondered if this had been Mycroft's plan all along – to shock me into helping Sherlock by recounting disturbing tales from his childhood.

Mycroft smiled; clearly realising he had as good as been given permission to begin his story.

"It is not that Sherlock doesn't feel emotion, John; rather that he is afraid to. Perhaps by the time we are through you will understand why..."

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><p><strong>So...what did you think? I'd love to continue with this as I have an idea of where to head next, but I'd also love to know what you thought.. Also, was hoping to ask for an opinion on the next chapter's POV - will be dated back 17 years and through the eyes of Sherlock, but should it be from his POV (e.g. in the first person much like what you've just read) or third person? I'm stumped! <strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: First off, a big thank you to everyone who's read and/or reviewed over the last week or so, and for all your opinions on POV from now on. It was a mixed bag, but I've decided to go with Sherlock's POV (as you will see..) seeing as how the alternative was clairvoyant Mycroft which will just get annoying; not to mention unrealistic since there's no way he could know what's going on inside his brother's head! Also this was I figure I can try and get inside Sherlock's head a bit more...the only downside from a writer's perspective is that Sherlock POV isn't easy to write! Anyway, this is my stab at it, and I'd be really interested to know what you guys think! :)**

* * *

><p>"<em>The hospitals are full of people dying, <em>Doctor_. Why don't you go and cry by their bedside, see how much good it does them..." – Sherlock Holmes, 'The Great Game' _

**July 1993.**

Chicken, leek and pastry pie -Mother's favourite dish- took four minutes and forty two seconds in the microwave to reach that stage where the chicken is tender enough to let all the flavour through into the heart of the meat, but not quite so that all the taste is gone from the crust. This was how Mother requested her evening meal, but it had taken me twenty seven attempts at five different wattages and countless times in order to perfect it. Nothing less than a flawlessly executed symphony between chicken, veg and pastry would do, and it seemed that despite my best efforts, there was always, _always_ something wrong with the result. I was open to any challenge thrown my way, but cooking was boring. Pies were boring. Spending £42.78 a week in Marks & Spencer _on_ pies was boring _and_ expensive, but as it was an extravagance which drove my brother Mycroft to near distraction, I'd decided it was well worth it. Irritating Mycroft – now that was _never_ boring!

On one particular lunchtime, the metallic 'ping' of the microwave roused me from the wholly unstimulating task of draining off boiled carrots to serve with Mother's pie. Mother was in the drawing room, as she always was at this time of day. Predictable, but probably the only thing about her nowadays which was.

Doctors had taken eleven months to diagnose her with early-onset dementia. _Eleven months_. I ask you! Who did they have working at hospitals nowadays, and who was skipping out on the training? A whole eleven months for an inconclusive result, but one certain promise – you will start to get ill, and it's going to happen very, very quickly. I'd been noticing the signs for months: forgetting names and goals, confusion, low attention span, slow and unsteady movements. She would stand in the hallway, eyes glazed over, and call me from my room to ask if I had seen her handbag whilst all the while it was hanging on her arm. The hospital had offered counselling for me and Mycroft, but my brother had gone alone. Counsellors nowadays (any days really) were an enormous waste of space, time and money spent, paying them to do little more than encourage people to talk about their feelings, under the guise that the counsellor's office was a place you could say all the things you shouldn't be saying about your situation: that you were angry with the person who was ill, for example, or that you wished they'd die quickly and save you all the suffering. And talk about it? I didn't talk. Talking was boring.

To my mind at least, the only one with the right to complain or despair of the situation was Mother herself – she was the one losing grip on her mind whilst trying to simultaneously deal with the fact that one day she would wake up no longer recognising the faces of her children. But Mother didn't want to see a counsellor; and indeed who _would_ want a hospital shrink standing over you, 'helping' you to _accept_ the fact that you would be mindless and drooling within a few short years...? Complaining would get us nowhere, least of all make Mother better, and she knew it as well as any of us. The one and only thing I knew I could do for her and do well was ensure she was taken care of, but Mycroft didn't seem to agree. If my brother had had his way, Mother would have been institutionalised and our hands washed of her within minutes of her diagnosis. I wasn't going to let that happen.

Mother's dinner in hand, I left the kitchen. It would take me thirty three seconds to ascend the kitchen stairs to the entrance hallway, ascend the main staircase, and walk down the upstairs hallway to the second door on the left – the drawing room where Mother was waiting for me. I'd never consciously counted the length of time it took me to reach her; I'd simply become aware of it. Thirty seconds or less was all it would take for Mother to leave her chair and wander, have a fall or hurt herself. In caring for Mother, time had taken on new significance.

"Mother?" I put my head around the door and watched her respond to my voice. She turned my way slowly, as though there was a long relay between her ears registering my voice and her brain realising it was me speaking.

"Hello, darling." Even her voice was slower now. On the outside, she was still my mother – greying hair crowning a wrinkling but still beautiful face, eyes which seemed to have recently lost their sparkle. What was on the inside didn't normally matter to me, but with Mother I felt like I was driving blind; to the casual observer she seemed perfectly normal. Only through clear and careful observation over a long period would you notice the vacant expression in her eye or the way she seemed to droop inside her clothes, like a flower whose roots had been severed from the earth.

I crossed the room to her chair, smiling thinly as I held the tray to her.

"Can you take the cutlery, Mother?"

"Yes, yes, dear..." A hand came up, shaking, grasping the fork I offered with an unsteady hand. I'd cut up the pie and vegetables myself before I'd brought her the tray, so she wouldn't be needing a knife. Her arm went up and down over the plate, sometimes missing the food altogether, but she was getting there. When she was finished, I considered what today's lunch had told me about the progression of her condition: the meal had taken approximately thirty two minutes – more or less the same as last time. She'd choked three times on vegetables and chicken (the latter being harder for her to chew), but the softer boiled carrots she swallowed without much difficulty. She'd finished the meal in thirty eight bites and had managed to drink her tea without trouble. Interesting.

"Have you finished?"

"Yes...yes..."

I could see the bags under her eyes; knew she hadn't slept again last night after I'd put her back to bed. A symptom of the dementia was a tendency to wander at night. Once I'd settled her to bed, she would wake sporadically and roam the house, undoubtedly putting herself at risk, but there was little I could do to stop her – she hardly even knew she was doing it. I barely needed sleep myself; my body clock was completely banjaxed anyway from years of late nights, early mornings, and some nights with no sleep at all that it seemed I'd trained myself to manage on just a few hours per week. Keep it up for too long though and I'd collapse, waking up hours later with little idea of what had happened, but feeling sluggish beyond belief. Sleep dulled the sharp edges of my senses, and I couldn't have that. Especially nowadays; there was far too much at stake.

"I'm going to leave you now," I told her. I'd spoken gently, but the effect was instantaneous: her eyes flashed with alarm as a hand came out to grasp my forearm.

"Where are you going?"

"Not far. I'll be back soon, I promise." I stroked her arm. Often this was all it took for her to be calm again – an affectionate touch and an empty promise which chances were good she'd have forgotten inside half an hour. It wouldn't matter anyway – she was tired, she needed sleep. I knew that once I was gone, it would only be a matter of minutes before she dropped off, and that would leave me at a loose end for the duration of the afternoon.

As it was, I kept my promise this time. I sat with her, ramrod straight by her chair and watching as her eyes slowly began to droop and she fell finally asleep. My eyes never left her face. When I was focussed on a task, there was little or nothing which would distract me from my objective. 'Inhuman' was the word used by Mycroft to describe my obsession; the way I would get totally lost in a task and continue to function as normal (and we both considered this term in its loosest possible meaning) until it was done. He'd thought it was amusing to suggest that one of these days I would be so engrossed I'd forget to breathe. Juvenile. Not to mention practically impossible.

Once satisfied Mother was asleep, I found myself wandering further along the corridor. There was no way to escape it – Mother was taken care of for the time being, so now began the boredom.

I yanked open the door at the furthest reaches of the hallway, revealing the staircase which led to the attic bedroom I'd chosen for my own as a child. The stairs went up in a spiral, disappearing up further than the naked eye could see. When I was a boy, my father had lined the banister with glass burners into which I'd emptied combinations of chemicals and a choice of luminescent dyes, creating my own glowstick-esque lanterns to light the way to bed. The burners were still there eight years on, but the colours had long since died out. I knew my way by now well enough that the need for lights had been rendered futile, but I could never escape the memory as I swept past in my latest daydream: of Mother, Mycroft and the frustration of knowing that yet another day was passing during which I had achieved next to nothing whatever.

My room was a misshapen oval with low ceilings which had always posed a problem, even in my youth. Now though -standing as I did at nearly six feet and an inch- they weren't so much a problem as they were a complete liability, but I wouldn't change it for the world: the walls were lined with bookshelves containing dusty volumes from every age, dating right back to decades before my birth. An oak armoire held my clothes; an antique writing desk served as storage for my documents and also as a lab table. Chemicals and various dubious concoctions littered its surface, some standard compounds, some of my own invention. The bed was the crowning feature of the room (with its deep oak headboard and covers thrown in unmade disarray), and it was onto the mattress that I now collapsed – arms spread wide, pivoting on one foot and crashing downwards, bouncing a little before finally coming to rest in the middle of the bed gazing up at the ceiling. I breathed out deeply, content for the time being just to lay still and stare up at the wooden beams criss-crossing through the roof of my house. But my amusement was short-lived.

I sat up sighing, catching a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror which hung on the wall opposite the end of the bed. The face which stared back at me was the same one I'd been seeing for close to seventeen and a half years now – grey eyes, high cheekbones beneath a strained complexion of ivory skin, and a chiselled jawline which cut off roughly, giving my face an almost permanent expression of severity. I was only seventeen, but I seemed, looked and felt far older. I was told it was my eyes – they'd already seen too much. I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling its new length, wondering briefly why it was so long and finally remembering I hadn't been to the barbers in over six months. I was, as Mother had so often said, a work of art, inimitable to its creators. Not a beautiful one I didn't think, but a unique creation all the same. This was both a blessing and a curse: I could relax in the knowledge that there was not another person in the world who shared the same looks as me, for in all honesty there wasn't a single person in the six-billion strong army of mindless earth-roaming zombies otherwise known as the Human Race I would appreciate being grouped with! The negative was knowing that I could be easily searched out. Unique though I was, I was more than content to keep it to myself; unique not just in looks but in mind too. There was nobody quite like me out there, but I didn't feel alienated or alone. Instead I felt empowered. Knowing that the pedestal I was on was always one notch higher than the rest; that was what kept me going most days, and I had no desire to share that with the world.

The walls were more interesting than the ceiling, I decided. Newspaper cuttings and fuzzy paparazzi photographs, printed police summaries and my own notes were stretched willy-nilly across the wood panelling. The jewel in the crown was displayed above the headboard of my bed -The Carl Powers case- but I didn't want to look at it now. Instead I dived to my stomach and began to rummage beneath the bed, finally succeeding in pulling a large leather-bound book from the darkness below. This was Mother's logbook: every mealtime, nap and sleeping pattern was noted down so that I might monitor her deterioration over the months and years since her diagnosis. This wasn't for the hospital's use, but rather for my own personal observational experiment. No-one else but me knew of its existence.

I took down the figures and times I'd memorised from Mother's meal a few minutes earlier, added in the day's date and was about to close it when a familiar noise caught my attention. The telephone downstairs was ringing. I cocked an ear and listened – two rings in, five left to go. Twelve point seven two seconds to reach the phone before it rang off. I took off down the stairs at breakneck speed, finally reaching the extension on the wall of the corridor and snatching up the receiver.

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Mycroft Holmes," came the derisive answer. "Really, Sherlock, it's the house telephone; who else should I be expecting to pick it up?"

Mycroft. How very _un_interesting. I'd been expecting his call all day - he rang every Friday at two, intending to catch me while Mother was asleep so that I'd have the time to speak to him. He continually missed the point of course: even if I had nothing better to do, the shorter straw was still talking to my brother over the phone. His voice was so monotonous; I'd often considered using a Dictaphone to make a recording of his Friday phone call and playing it to Mother to help her sleep through the night.

"Yes?" I ignored his sarcasm. It wasn't worth my time.

"I can't speak for long Sherlock, I have a meeting in five minutes." If Mycroft could hear my distaste, he didn't let it show.

"Shame..."

"I was just ringing to let you know I'll be dropping in later." Mycroft's voice was muffled – he had his mouth full. He'd skipped lunch again and sent his assistant to the chip van, I was sure of it. "I have some papers I'd like to look over with you, and it really can't wait til morning."

"Don't let me keep you from your civic duties," I said snidely. "I wouldn't want the Home Secretary to be without you for more than an hour; who knows what could happen in your absence..."

Mycroft tutted. "I finish work at five, and then I will be over. Just make sure you're in and available."

"Goodbye, Mycroft."

My brother arrived at five on the dot. He rang the doorbell first, but I didn't get up. He still had his front door key...let him use it! When he eventually made it to the lounge where I was sitting waiting for him, he appeared indifferent. I heard the door open behind me; smelt the overpowering stench of aftershave -Paul Smith, I think- and another mingled with it...women's perfume. I smiled. Was that a top button undone? And lipstick on his lapel? It was a very distinct shade – Chanel Orchard Sunset. The secretary again. How nice for him.

"Ah Mycroft, your bi-annual visit is upon us once again." I had my violin clutched tightly in both hands, running fingers up and down the strings as I always did when Mycroft visited. It seemed to calm me somehow which made his visits easier to bear, and in any case the noise of the strings drove him wild with irritation. "Forgive me for not laying out the red carpet this time – we're saving it for our more important guests; the gardener for example, and that man who came last week to unblock the kitchen sink!"

Mycroft held a large golfing umbrella in his pudgy hand and a briefcase in the other. He always had that umbrella with him. On his very worst days, I entertained brilliant Technicolor daydreams where I took that umbrella and crammed it into each orifice in turn...

"How have you been, Sherlock?"

"Changeable." I glanced up at him. "Six months _does_ make a lot of difference with dementia..."

Clearly missing or choosing to ignore the sarcasm which was literally dripping from my every word, Mycroft would only concede a rueful smile.

"I receive regular updates from Mummy's physician as to the state of her health; Sherlock, I was enquiring as to how _you_ are..."

"I'm fine," I said brusquely.

"You haven't been eating; I can see you've lost weight."  
>"I can see you haven't."<p>

It was true – Mycroft had always been on the plump side, but he seemed to have gained an extra jowl even since we'd last spoken. Today, clad in a pale pink shirt stretched taut across his flabby stomach, he bore an uncanny resemblance to a marshmallow in suit trousers. He'd gained five...no, _six_ pounds since I'd last seen him, and he knew it better than I did.

"Now Sherlock, let's not stray off-subject," Mycroft said, colouring delightfully in his embarrassment. "I came here to visit my family, not to provoke a row."

"Really? How very public spirited of you." I seldom had time for Mycroft and his delusion that the rare visits he paid to see Mother somehow made him a coveted candidate for Son of The Year 1993. Weekly phone calls were one thing, but he hadn't visited in person since January. Of course the cheques arrived on the first day of every month without fail, but knowing Mycroft he would have had his secretary sort that out; merely signing his name, telling her the amount and then allowing her to send it off. Besides, Mother was long past the stage where money would compensate for her beloved eldest son choosing to visit once on a blue moon. I never understood her sadness. If Mycroft didn't _want_ to visit her, then I for one would have rather he stayed away.

"I brought these for you to look at." Mycroft had been in his briefcase and was now offering me a stack of brightly coloured booklets. I took them and began to leaf through. 'Merrydale Nursing Care'. 'High Hopes Respite Centre'. 'Beachwood House Nurses'. So this was another of Mycroft's attempts to convince me to hire help for Mother. Typical. Fruitless. I blinked once, balled up the leaflets and dropped them into the wastepaper bin beside my chair before taking up my book once again.

Mycroft clicked his teeth in frustration and retrieved the leaflets, straightening out the creases.

"Sherlock, don't just dismiss this." He indicated one of the leaflets which showed a smiling old man, wrapped in the arms of his grown-up daughter and a shoal of little grandchildren. "These people are on hire to help – to help Mummy, to help you look after her, and to help _me_ to help _you._"

"We don't need your help," I almost spat. Why was this so difficult for him to understand? I had been up since five thirty officially, and on-and-off all night with Mother; every bone in my body ached with fatigue; my eyes felt as though they were superglued shut; and my head pounded like one of those tuneless heavy metal band was playing their greatest hits on amp inside my skull, but I would take it a thousand times worse before I let one of Mycroft's agency incompetents come within a hair's breadth of my mother. It was totally out of the question – Mother didn't like strangers at the best of times, let alone when they were in her house, cooking her meals, helping her dress, preparing her sponge bath... No. No-one was allowed to touch my mother apart from me. No-one else would look after her; no-one else would care for her. This was my task and I could bear it alone. We were just fine as we were; Mother and me. No-one else. We didn't need any help.

"Ought you to be getting back?" I asked Mycroft. "I'm sure the Prime Minister has some pyjamas somewhere in need of folding..."

"At least consider allowing..."

"No."

"...one of the representatives into the house to evaluate Mother's condition," Mycroft finished. "I've heard great things about all of these agencies; Beachwood House in particular has a very good reputation."

"I'm sure Mother would be pleased to know you're sending medical school rejects with a 'good reputation' to take care of her rather than the alternative." I sounded out an especially vicious F on my violin, before looking up at my brother. "Do you not think I'm capable, Mycroft?"

Mycroft's face was unreadable; or at least it would have been had he not been my older brother for nearly eighteen years. He was trying to work out how best to phrase 'No I do not' without pissing me off, seemingly unaware that there was no answer he could give that would avoid this eventuality. I waited, head tilted to one side as if interested in what he had to say.

"You're seventeen years old, Sherlock..."

"Children of eleven and twelve in this country care for their relatives."

"Rarely without the aid of a nurse or care assistant," Mycroft said.

"Well then the extra years should hand me the advantage." I picked up my bow and ran it experimentally over the strings. "How much longer do you plan on staying?"

"As long as it takes to convince you that what seems the right course of action to you might not be the best for Mummy." Mycroft got to his feet, clearly intending to appear intimidating, so I copied him. We were more-or-less the same height now, but at present I had a 6mm lead. "Please, Sherlock, I don't want to insist..."

"Insist?" I scoffed. "You and what army, _Mycroft_? Aren't they engaged in the Middle East on your orders anyway?"

Mycroft breathed in hard and fast, biting his lip to keep from retorting. He had always been slower when it came to wits, but made up for it by refusing to react.

"I only wish to help you," he said, speaking one syllable at a time as though trying to keep his temper intact.

"Well why don't _you_ move back in then?" I snapped at him. "Give up your job and help care for Mother, or else shut up and go away now before she wakes up and remembers she _has_ another son; albeit one who would rather see her rot in a nursing home than live out the rest of her days here in some level of comfort."

I was sure this would send him over the edge, but instead Mycroft almost seemed puzzled.

"Do you not find it upsetting?" he asked carefully. "Seeing Mummy deteriorate..? I would understand if you did."

"Well I don't." It wasn't a complete lie: I had been affected by Mother's illness of course, but upset? I didn't know. What seemed like an age ago, when we had received her prognosis, I'd worked out that blocking out what I felt about Mother at least helped to numb the dull aching in my chest whenever I saw her. It was a distraction I could do without, and so I did without it. It hadn't been difficult to simply remember that there were worse things happening in the world; that my own unhappiness (if it was indeed unhappiness I was feeling) mattered nothing compared to Mother's safety and wellbeing. It was my duty to take care of her, and I was more than willing to do it. As for understanding, when was the last time Mycroft had understood anything? He spoke two languages: those of science and money, and last I checked, neither was relevant to our Mother _or_ my ability to take care of her. What got under my skin far more than Mother's illness was Mycroft's lack of effort. The woman who had carried us both, birthed us, raised us was disappearing before our eyes, and yet he would rather sit in his office and send anonymous nursing assistants to poke and prod her through her day-to-day routine. It didn't seem to bother him at all, and though I didn't always understand people and their emotional attachments, to not have an emotional attachment to one's _Mother_ seemed yet stranger. I looked at Mycroft, studying his face for signs; anything which would clue me in as to what his game was. "Why?" I asked finally. "Do you?"

This clearly took Mycroft by surprise. He cleared his throat. "It's difficult for me, I won't deny it."

I nodded. "Yes, I've always thought it must be frightfully hard for you, sitting in your air-conditioned office thirty five miles away, and thinking of your Mother wasting away in her country house alone..."

"Why do you insist upon fighting me?"

"Because I'm bored," I said. Though this was not the sole reason, my argument with Mycroft had livened me up considerably, but he wasn't to know that. I'd have hated him to think he was proving useful to me in any way...

Mycroft had no answer to this, or if he did he was keeping it quiet. He sighed, sat down (the sofa cushions gasping under his weight) and pulled a chequebook from his interior jacket pocket.

"Do you have a pen?" he asked.

"On the table." The table (and the pen which sat upon it) was beside by armchair, but I wasn't about to hand it to him.

"At least let me write you a cheque to cover the sum of the week's food, the cost of your living etc..."

I glanced over at the number he was copying out, and raised an eyebrow. It was his usual amount. Maybe half of that would go on food. I never kept tabs on exactly what happened to the rest – whatever Mother wanted or requested; whatever would make her happy I bought without question. Finances were not the problem here, I considered...Mycroft was! Ordinarily I'd have never accepted charity from my self-satisfied older brother, and if it had been just me on my own, I never would have. But I had Mother to consider too, and she needed the money. I had to swallow my pride, but it didn't mean I had to be grateful!

I held out a hand pointedly and waited for Mycroft to drop the cheque into my palm, then folded it up and tucked it into a pocket. Whether he was expecting thanks or maybe even a fanfare was unclear. Either way, he wasn't getting anything from me.

"I'm going to check on Mother."

I was careful to treat quietly whilst approaching the drawing room, conscious that Mother had only been asleep for an hour and would gain nothing from being woken early. I wasn't expecting to see her wide awake and watching me, a knowing smile on her face so similar to the one she had worn throughout my childhood that I blinked a few times, taking it in. She'd clearly been awake for some time, and I was a tad surprised she hadn't left her chair to search for me. It wasn't uncommon for her to wake from a nap in a fit of confusion...

"That was Mycroft, wasn't it?" she asked, beckoning me over, her hand movements jerky but her voice more confident than usual. She had remembered his name. This was clearly one of her better days, but how long would it last?

"Yes." I sat beside her and allowed her to take my hand in hers. "You heard his dulcet tones, did you?"

"I thought I heard the door..."

"You did."

"Did you argue?" I could see the smile wavering, and desperately wanted to lie. Mother hated it when we argued; she always had, but it hadn't stopped us. One Christmas had been completely ruined by our gripes – we'd faced each other over the dinner table for ten minutes, our Father shouting at us to stop, Mother leaving the room in tears. I'd been eleven and Mycroft eighteen: old enough to know better perhaps, but even in those days a fight with Mycroft was a dead-cert to brighten up an otherwise inane pseudo-religious holiday people like my brother insisted upon putting on a show for.

"Yes we did." Mother could always tell when I was lying, and as a child I'd quickly learned that it really wasn't worth my while to try.

"Just a...little disagreement I hope...?"

"Absolutely," I assured her. There was a pause. Then... "Just to clarify, Mother, you are happy with me taking care of you?"

"Of course, dear!" Mother looked surprised.

"You don't want a nurse or government stooge of any kind to help?"

"No, no..."

"Excellent!" I kissed her cheek, smiling, looking at my watch. "It's nearly six," I told her. "Supper time?"

"Yes please, darling." Mother smiled. "I love you," she said, kissing my cheek and patting it gently.

"I know."

I left the room with a smile, knowing full well that Mycroft had been outside in the hallway the entire time having followed me up the stairs, and had no doubt heard mine and Mother's exchange; I'd asked for her opinion on nursing care for his benefit alone, and Mycroft knew it.

It was close to being one of the most absurdly dramatic moments of my life as I swept out into the corridor past Mycroft who had indeed been listening at the door, and was now watching me with a glare etched to his face, causing his eyebrows to visibly melt into the considerable flesh of his forehead.

"You know it's rude to eavesdrop, brother," I informed him, still smiling complacently and not caring a jot.

"This isn't over, Sherlock."

"Oh?" I couldn't resist. "When and how will you take your revenge, Lord Vader?"

Mycroft coloured deeply, and not just through anger; he deeply resented any crass reference to his onetime obsession with the genre of science fiction and had for so many years insisted that the ingeniously named 'Death Star' could one day be developed and used as a new generation of WMD by our enemies that naturally I felt compelled to bring it up as often as was possible.

"I have another meeting at seven," he said through gritted teeth, "so I will be leaving shortly. Let me say a quick hello to Mummy, and then I'll leave you in peace."

"I doubt it..." I had reached the end of the corridor by now, intent upon heading downstairs to start on Mother's supper. "Goodbye Mycroft. Give my regards to the Queen over dinner won't you?" Subversively mocking Mycroft and his job (which was rather less impressive than he would lead us to believe) was often the last card I had to play, but I made sure I played it well.

Down in the kitchens however, my rejuvenated mood didn't take long to evaporate almost completely. I felt itchy and restless from the top of my head to the tips of my toes 6ft down as I found myself longing for something -anything- to come along which might drag me out of this rut of routine and boredom into which I'd yet again descended. I checked myself angrily, shaking my head as though it would purge me of such an ungrateful and selfish state: to feel resentful towards my Mother for taking up my life with her illness was a level too low for me to consider sinking, and yet I could feel it eating away at me like a flesh devouring parasite or a slug on a lettuce leaf. I told myself it wouldn't be forever, but then the thought of her actually dying entered my brain and the alarm bells sounded; not because I couldn't bear to live without my Mother, but because for a split second I'd actually been looking forward to it! She was suffering, and despite my bravado, so was I. _So was I..._

With a firm swish of the kitchen knife I held, I took the crusts off Mother's pate-salad sandwich and arranged the little bread triangles on her favourite teatime plate. I looked down at my efforts, satisfied. That was better. I'd need practice blocking out all I was feeling, but it would come in time; that much I was sure of.

As I ascended the stairs once more for the drawing room, listening with relief to the sound of the gravel drive crunching under the now moving wheels of Mycroft's car as he left, I sucked in a deep breath of air. It didn't matter what Mycroft said; all that mattered to me was taking care of Mother and I could do it alone. We were going to be just fine.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: SO thrilled with the positive response to Sherlock POV in the last chapter! Thank you so much to everyone who read and reviewed with their feedback! :) **

**So in this chapter I thought we'd introduce my OC, and before anyone says "MARY-SUE!", I'd like to respectfully request that you give me a few chapters to show their true colours...not everything is as it seems! **

**That said, as always feedback and criticism/pointers for improvement are always, ALWAYS appreciated! Would just like to thank GhibliGirl91 and PaleTreasures for their PM support and for having faith. I hope I'm doing you guys proud here! :)**

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><p>"<em>I worry about him...constantly..." – Mycroft Holmes, 'A Study in Pink'<em>

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><p><strong>August 1993.<strong>

The outside temperature had hit 34.5°C – the hottest it had been all summer by several degrees. If I could help it I stayed out of the sun. To describe my colouring as 'pale' would be a serious understatement – I sported a blinding shade of alabaster year upon end, and for me and others like me, ray-catching would only be a shortcut to skin cancer (the sceptics being the first to go...the link was beyond obvious). But today I _couldn't _help it: Mother was sensitive to heat and usually maxed out around thirty five degrees, but the lack of ventilation inside the house meant that her drawing room was several higher, therefore staying in the house was hardly a reasonable option.

She said she was fine, but the glaze across her eyes and beads of sweat slowly pooling beneath her collar said otherwise. When she lifted her iced tea to her mouth to drink, it was with a trembling hand, and I could see her knees -already weakened by illness and lack of use- shaking more than usual beneath her weight as I helped her stand to use the toilet. Minute details, but they mattered – Mother was overheating and that would mean trouble unless something was done. The last time she'd fallen over, tripping over the legs of the coffee table which _somebody_ (Mycroft) had left out of place, it had taken me more than fifteen minutes to get her up again; my point being that at the time she was in a fairly functional state. Trying to pick her up while she was giddy and half unconscious with heatstroke was an experiment I could live without the experience of.

And so I went to the cupboard beneath the spiral staircase to find Mother's wheelchair. I'd loved the staircase and the cupboard as a kid – right after I'd discovered that soaking the front of an old jersey with a slippery substance I found in Mycroft's bedroom (what later turned out to be Polytetrafluroethylene, or Teflon used in non-stick pans, he'd created in a lights-out experiment) made banister-sliding all the more exciting. The cupboard...well that was my hiding place once Mycroft realised I'd been looting his bedroom. Took him an age to find me, and by then there were bigger things to worry about. The remaining Teflon which I'd left in the upstairs bathroom, now half-digested by the family cat for example, but that's another story...

The wheelchair was a hideous contraption: ordered by Mycroft of course, from one of his Disabled Aid catalogues, and dumped on the doorstep three months back without warning or explanation. Impertinent, as always, it would appear that Mycroft knew me rather too well: he'd removed both the instruction manual and the warranty insignia from the box to prevent me from returning it. Clever, but infuriating - Mycroft's speciality.

I hated assembling it as well. It was simple enough to do (one of those new fangled fold-away numbers meant for ease of storage) but every click and grind as the handles and seat-back slotted into place grated on me. They seemed to scream Mycroft's name; a painful reminder of his intrusion I couldn't seem to escape from. So I carried it out quickly, fastening the catches and wheeling the damn thing out into the hallway. Mother was in the living room this time, on the ground floor.

As I pushed the door open and manoeuvred the chair through in my wake, I caught sight of her sitting stock still on the settee. She was staring out of the window which overlooked the drive and gardens, unblinking, as though whatever she was seeing was too fascinating to look away. I shook my head briefly, fooled for a moment (if only for a moment) by the illusion. She may have been seeing, but it wasn't registering. Whatever was outside the window was alien to her, no matter how focussed she seemed. Sometimes it took me time to remember that...

The noise of the door clicking shut behind me brought her from her daydream and she turned, puzzled at the sight of the wheelchair.

"What's that for?"

"It's your chair," I told her, smiling thinly. "It's too hot in here for me, let alone you."

"Where are we going?"

"Out."

"Out where?"

"To the river," I said on impulse, studying her face for a reaction. Behind our house, in the next plot along, there was a house and fertile land owned by Mr Henry Lovett – a decrepit old farmer with a club foot and bald head whose fields filled to the brim with crops and livestock ran right down to the banks of a thriving river which could be reached via a winding footpath going through the wheat plantation. Once upon a time, the river had been Mother's favourite place to visit, but now it appeared she'd forgotten its existence: not a shred of recognition shone on her face at the sound of its name. Interesting. I wondered if visual stimuli would help jog her memory. There was one way to find out, but I'd never taken the wheelchair down the footpath before; in fact, I'd barely pushed the thing at all. I didn't want to touch it - doing so made me feel far more involved. Moreover, it was yet another _aide memoire_ of Mother's illness and her deterioration. I didn't like that. It meant I was losing control, and that wouldn't do...

"Are you ready?" I asked, swallowing my feelings in the infancy, before they could even really be called feelings. I didn't have time for them today or ever. In fact, if today's readings were anything to go by, time was the one thing I couldn't afford to waste.

Outside, the sun was pouring out of the clouds like liquid out of a glass. I bent over the chair to check Mother was alright. I'd applied suncream to her exposed skin before we'd left, but somehow putting some on my own had never occurred. It wouldn't have taken long anyway - I hadn't worn short sleeves or trousers since my childhood and had no intention of starting soon. Taking unnecessary pride in my appearance wasn't worth my time; it infuriated me how much time and effort was wasted on personal grooming in the world when people could be something _useful_! A cure for cancer? A serial killer's head on a silver platter? I'm fairly certain neither of those was going to be hiding inside a bottle of shampoo or supposed 'extra-strength' hairspray. When I got to thinking about it, it wound me up like a spring. It was a common reflection of mine that the Nazis had had it all wrong - there is no Master Race...they're all as stupid as each other!

The usual repertoire of jovial thoughts dancing through my mind, I pushed hard on the wheelchair handles. The wheels dug deep and tore up the lawn as we went, but the lawn wasn't important. It was the fields I was looking to, and I knew Mother was too, even if she didn't know the way.

Just as I had planned, we went to the back of the garden and through the gap in the privet hedge I'd enlarged specifically for the wheelchair's access. There was no fault in thinking ahead, as I'd professed to the gardener when he'd demanded to know why five foot of his foliage had mysteriously disappeared.

As the uphill climb began, it grew steadily harder to push. The wheelchair had handles of sorts across the back wheels, meant for the patient or passenger to wheel themselves in the absence of a companion to do it for them. It would have made the job easier, and Mother would have been more than happy to try if I'd asked her, but I never would have. I wouldn't accept help from Mycroft to look after her when I could do it myself, and I certainly wasn't about to stoop low enough to ask _her_ to help!

I heard the river before I saw it; knew it was flowing steady as usual behind the rows of trees which framed Lovett's fields. Through the thicket was a clearing which led up to the water's edge, and I strained under the weight of the chair, pushing for it. It was perfect for what we needed - the crowning treetops formed a canopy which kept off the worst of the sun, and the trickling water was pleasing on the ear; seemed to lower the temperature. Figuratively of course, not actually. It wouldn't start to get properly cold again for several months - one good reason to look forward to Christmas I supposed...

"Where are we going?" Mother's voice piped up, taking me by surprise, and not just because I hadn't been expecting to hear her speak: it had been less than ten minutes since we'd left the house, and it was as though her memory had blanked out. Ten minutes... I would have to make a note of this later.

"The river," I told her, "we're here now."

She slipped into silence again, and I parked the wheelchair three metres from the riverbank, pulling hard on the brakes so it wouldn't roll any further towards the water. Mother stared straight ahead again, and I was content just to sit beside the wheelchair and watch her - the way her fingers seemed to curl slightly inwards as though she was forgetting how to straighten them out; the way her limbs no longer seemed to move or shift as she breathed but stayed still, as though caught in cast-iron restraints. In fact, it looked as though breathing itself -an almost purely unconscious process- was becoming more and more of a struggle for her as time wore on.

My eye twitched as I grimaced to myself, resting my fingers together in an almost prayer-like position. Trees and foliage, plants and flowers lay all around us in glorious shades of green and brighter colours too, but I almost didn't notice them. They were there, but they weren't important. Trees, plants, fields, flowers - none had ever held any particular stirring interest for me, no matter how picturesque a scene they created. People; now _that_ was that I lived for - to observe them, read their past and in a number of cases be able to predict what they could do next. It was a skill I'd been born with, and it was this more so than my looks and cold demeanour which set me apart. But out here, there were no people, there were only trees. And plants. And flowers. And me. It was _just_ me. Me and Mother, that is, and she didn't give me much in conversation nowadays.

Lost though I was in my own mind, I stiffened suddenly. I could hear footsteps approaching from behind. This, I knew, was where I could shine. This was my playing field, and yet I was the only spectator. Why did I do it then; what was the purpose? Vanity? Or boredom? It was anyone's guess; anyone's except my own. Why people stood so much stead by motives was beyond me anyway. To most, it never occurs that sometimes there _is_ no motive. Sometimes -though only sometimes- you come across someone who is brilliant enough to do what they do not because there is a reason, but simply because they _can_. So instead of turning my head to see who was approaching, I cocked my head to one side and listened intently.

_Just under a second's gap between each footstep - the approaching party was a man then; the steps were too long to be a woman's stride. A heavy man too, judging by the volume of the paces, and was that a twig I heard snapping? Heavy, yes definitely. Shoes were tailored - not meant for outdoors, certainly not meant for hiking footpaths; the gait was clumsy, uncomfortable even. _Where had he come from..?_ Following this footpath to the river...he could only have come from the house or garden._ I smiled to myself, clearing my throat when I knew the man was close enough to hear me.

"Mycroft. What a pleasant surprise..."

"I saw the tracks from the wheelchair on the pathway," Mycroft said, coming to a stop beside me and offering a handshake which I casually ignored. "I thought you must be up here..." He kissed Mother's cheek briefly with a smile, then bent right over, palms on his knees, trying to catch his breath. It would take some catching! My smile stretched wider. Amused though I was, I couldn't help but wonder what Mycroft was doing here. It had only been three weeks or so since we'd last seen him. To drop in as often as this, and unannounced to boot? That was almost unheard of, especially by Mycroft, who timetabled his bladder movements and would put off a trip to A&E if it conflicted with a meeting or other important arrangement.

We sat without speaking for several minutes, each waiting for the other to make the first move as it were. Mother said nothing of course. She seemed perfectly happy to let us get on with it, though I wasn't able to tell whether it was the dementia or seventeen years experience with us that had led to her silence.

"I have come," Mycroft said eventually, "to provide you with some relief."

_Relief?_ If he'd brought a nurse or carer with him, there were going to be consequences - violent ones. But Mycroft was reaching into his pocket for his wallet. He presented me with a twenty, holding it between two fingers of his right hand as though it were a fag-end rather than a note of enough worth to feed Mother for a few days at least. Mycroft was so rolling in it, whatever it was he did occupationally speaking. I'd never been completely sure; only that he'd practically stepped right into the shoes of our father after he'd died, and that when I was a kid the only image I'd been able to conjure up had been row after row of suited men using fifty pound notes to wipe their mouths. It didn't matter to me then anymore than it did now.

"I have the day free to spend with Mummy," Mycroft announced, still waving the money in my face. "I suggest you take this opportunity for some rest and rehabilitation - perhaps a few hours spent with yourself. I daresay there are some..._things_ you wish to purchase or some interesting pastime you've been waiting to engage in..." He waved his hand dismissively, stretching his lips in to his thinnest, nastiest smile. The derision in his tone was louder than a foghorn. I didn't go out, I do anything. I didn't have anything _to do_, as Mycroft knew very well. I hated him.

Mycroft saw the murderous expression on my face. He stepped over and tucked the money into the breast pocket of my shirt. I didn't move, still glaring.

"You could at least drop into Brightman's for a pint of milk," he said. "I can see you're all out...and if you're truly concerned about the money then just give me the change when you get back!"

Brightman's was the grocer in the village. Mycroft was right of course - we were out of milk. The jam stain and toast crumbs on Mother's white blouse were an all-too-obvious indication she'd not had her usual porridge with warm milk for breakfast this morning, and I never served her toast if there was milk in the house for porridge - it was hard for her to swallow nowadays. This was perhaps one of the numerous reasons I couldn't stand to be around my brother: his talents so similar to my own almost paled me into insignificance. It had only ever been about Mycroft before I was born; by the time I came along, the novelty of inordinately intelligent children was beginning to wear off. Mother had been unspeakably proud of us both, of course, but Mycroft hadn't liked that either. I'd never managed to win with him (a moral victory wasn't worth winning after all); so I knew in my chest I wasn't going to win this one either. I could feel the money in my pocket like it was burning a hole through my shirt. It was charity. I hated it. And yet... I felt its presence almost as it were the key to the escape I'd so been craving. I looked over briefly to where Mother was still sitting still in her wheelchair beneath the trees, a vacant expression on her face. Mycroft might as well have read my mind.

"Sherlock, I don't doubt you will be back to take over once more before I'm able to do Mummy_ too _much damage in your absence..."

If this was Mycroft's attempt at wit, I was far from amused. His crass attitude was certainly doing nothing to help the nagging feeling in my gut: the one telling me against my better judgement to throw my pride to the wind and take his money. Sherlock Holmes - 'Out on the Town'. Well, 'Out on the Countryside'. With twenty pounds to spend. It was an inordinate waste of my time, and I would sooner have stayed with Mother, but for the first time in a long time, I was beginning to think I was feeling something other than for her - something self-centric. It was freedom -dramatic as that sounded- but it was calling my name.

I looked at Mother again, feeling a pang deep in my gut of what I could only assume was guilt. There I was again, wishing to be somewhere else than here, caring for her. I just couldn't focus my full attention on her at the moment. It was digging into me at the moment, now more than ever. I wanted to be there more than anything, but (although it killed me to admit it) when I saw the face of my Mother staring up at me from her armchair, it was becoming more and more difficult to see her as a fulfilment of my duty as her son. Instead I saw an old, crippled, sick old woman - not my responsibility, but my _burden_. I wanted it both ways; wanted to care for Mother all by myself, and yet I resented her more and more by the day. What was worse was that Mycroft knew the way I felt, I was sure of it. I could see the contempt on his face as his cold grey eyes stared right through me. His brother. His selfish baby brother who couldn't bring himself to put his life on hold to care for his dying mother, even at the time where she needed the most help.

I swallowed hard. Whatever Mycroft thought...it didn't matter to me. His opinion wasn't important. But I couldn't stop him whispering poison into Mother's ear, although she would never remember, and there was no reason I could see to stay here and watch them together. Maybe it would be good for Mother...it would certainly be good for me, I realised - Mycroft could spend the day with her, and then I could sit by happily these next few days and watch as she forgot _him_ for a change instead of me. That would be enough to cancel out much of the culpability I felt at this moment: knowing that if she could forget the Prodigal Son as she continually forgot me (and I was almost certain she would), she would never remember my leaving her. In fact, a part of me doubted she'd even notice I was gone at all.

I'd made up my mind: I didn't know where I was going to go or what the hell I was going to do, but for once it didn't matter. I would decide on that later, when I had put some distance between me and Mycroft, _and _between me and Mother. Just this once -if only for a few hours- I needed to forget her. I needed a distraction; one which would provide me with just an ounce of the independence I craved. As I turned my back (casting one final disdainful look in Mycroft's direction) and began to slowly move back down the hill away from the river, inside my head I was screaming out loud. _Why did she have to get ill_? I stopped myself - it wasn't her fault...but I wished it was; then at least, it wouldn't feel so malevolent for blaming her.

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><p>I'd intended to be back well before lunch, but somehow the hours got away from me. By the time it occurred to me to look at my watch, it was getting along for four in the afternoon and I found myself wondering where the time had gone to.<p>

It felt nice to be alone with my own thoughts, and for once they weren't about Mother and her condition. Mycroft had been harping on at me for months to start thinking seriously about my future (I was supposed to be starting A-Levels in September), but I'd almost given up all hope when Mother started deteriorating. Exam results and degrees, easy as they would be for me to achieve, weren't going to help her get better. My help was all I could give her, and I couldn't do that if I was at school. Studies were a waste of my time anyway - I'd passed mock A-Levels in calculus and science with distinction three years ago. There wasn't much point I could see in wasting two years studying for them when I could pass on my head whenever I chose, but Mycroft saw it differently. It was the final stroke, convincing him once and for all that I needed help to look after Mother. Our last discussion on the subject had ended abruptly.

The sun was still sky-high and I was sweltering inside my trousers and shirt, but I didn't break my stride. Instead I rolled the shirtsleeves up to my elbows and kept on walking. I was on my way back from the village where I'd spent the day walking. I never _had _spent Mycroft's money - I would take great delight in handing it back to him later, untouched.

On impulse, I took a right-hand turn on my way up the hill instead of the left and three hundred and twenty four metres which would take me home. I'd been sunken deep in thought once more, and I barely noticed as I crossed the stile in three steps and down into Farmer Lovett's western-most field. It was filled with haybales - cylindrical ones - on their sides, positioned at random across the grass-covered hills.

I walked for another three minutes or so along the side of the field by the barbed wire fence, wondering how Mycroft was coping back at the house. Mother would customarily ask for her dinner at around five, and I had no intention of being back by then. I smiled to myself briefly. I was picturing him trying to make the chicken and mushroom stroganoff I had set aside for Mother's dinner that evening. It made for a faintly amusing moment - Mycroft had relied on his sycophantic assistants and government lackeys to do his everyday jobs for so long he'd become undomesticated to the point where he could no longer use a toaster without setting the smoke alarms off. That said, he was certainly intelligent enough to work out if needs be; I was only sorry I wouldn't be there to see him try!

As I crossed into the next field, I followed a towpath down to a beech tree which overlooked the village in the valley way below. I sat down underneath the wide branches in the shade of the leaves, and breathed out deeply. I watched the people milling down in the streets below me, and wondered what their lives were like. My sharp eyes had caught old Mrs Braverman making her way up the high street with her lurid orange shopping bag on wheels.

Looking around me, I noticed for the first time that I wasn't alone: a boy of about nineteen or twenty I'd have said, sitting astride one of Lovett's haybales, one leg on either side as though he was straddling a horse. He held a lit cigarette in one hand and wore a leather jacket despite the heat. He was watching the horizon and it appeared he hadn't noticed me. That was good; I was in no mood to make small-talk with strangers, and could do without him trying to catch my eye or say hello.

Resting my elbows on my knees, I dug my hands deep into my hair and messed it back and forth, feeling like a dog shaking off after getting caught in the rain. Everything in the village seemed quiet, commonplace, as always. This was, as ever, just another horrendously tedious day in the bloody British countryside. I'd been sitting at home, concerned I was missing out on something, but today had been more than enough to convince me I'd been wrong. And wasn't that brilliant - knowing that even when Mother died and I was on my own, there really was nothing out there to look forward to! Today had been a mistake...a stupid mistake.

"Hey there, Tall Dark and Miserable...?"

My ears pricked up as the still air was rent by the drawl of a soft American accent. The boy behind me, still sitting on the haybale, had turned ninety degrees to the right and was now staring at me.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you," the boy said, as I looked over my shoulder to see who else he might be addressing. "You want a cigarette?"

I stared at him without answering, watching him. My first thought was that I should hasten to speak before the boy assumed I was a mute; my second that he was an incredibly interesting figure to study – high cheekbones, mischievous brown eyes and a thatch of gently flopping chestnut hair which descended in a slanted fringe across his pale forehead. One of his eyebrows (curved in a defined arch) crept up as the silence between us grew longer.

"No," I said finally, "thank you. I don't smoke."

"Sure?" The boy pulled a packet of American-brand cigarettes from his pocket and waved them temptingly in my direction. "Because no offence, but you look like you could use one!"

I ignored this and went back to studying the boy. He was no longer looking at me, but had instead flicked open a lighter, lit up his fag and was now blowing smoke rings up into the bright August sky. He had thin lips, I noticed, which puckered and stretched with every mouthful of smoke he expelled. I felt strangely and suddenly compelled to learn more about him, without the impediment of having to ask. I smiled to myself, looking away from the boy and back out at the village below me. My job would be easier if he was closer to me, but I was confident I could manage. As it turned out, I didn't have to - it was less than a minute more before the boy had swung his legs over the haybale, dropped to the ground and plopped to his knees before me, just as I had suspected he would. He had put the fag inbetween his teeth for the journey, but took it out again now and flashed me a smile.

"So did your folks give you a name? Or can I just call you 'The Kid Who Doesn't Smoke'?"

"It's Sherlock," I told him a touch irritably. "Sherlock Holmes."

The eyebrow was raised once more. "God. You English never go for the simple names do you...?" He flicked ash from his cigarette onto the grass, not bothering to offer me his own name, but that was alright. I wasn't concerned with getting familiar, as interesting a victim as he was proving to be. There was so much about him I'd managed to learn in the few minutes we'd been near each other; now all I was waiting for was an opportunity to state it out loud.

"Where do you live?" Clearly he was all about the questions. I gestured with one hand, pointing in the vague direction of my house without shifting my gaze towards him. Only when he looked away did I turn to look him over, silently adding ingredients and observations to the deduction I had brewing inside my head.

"And you live alone do you?" the boy prompted.

"No. With my Mother."

"Jesus what is _with _you?" He grinned, shaking his head so the fringe of chestnut fibres covering his eyebrows trembled and settled back down into place. "Getting you to talk is like squeezing pee from a stone! You got a Dad, Sherlock Holmes? Brothers and sisters? I love the way you Brits say 'Mother' though..." He chuckled to himself. "It's a cute accent on the right person..."

"Dead," I said in response to his first question, not enjoying the way he was looking at me. "And one brother."

He nodded. "That's cool. I'd have killed for a brother...or a sister! It gets pretty lonely - just me and Ma at home."

I said nothing, not letting on that I knew exactly what he was talking about. The moment's comment on my accent might never have happened - he went right back to smoking his cigarette as though it didn't matter to him in the slightest whether I continued the conversation or not.

"I see..." I looked him up and down and felt one corner of my mouth come up in a smile as I realised I knew where to go first. I turned my eyes back to the horizon, knees hunched up under my chin, and placed my hands in their favourite 'prayer' position. "How long are you staying with your Grandparents?"

The boy frowned. "Say what?"

"How long," I repeated, "Are you staying with your Grandparents for on the farm?"

The silence easily rivalled the one which had followed the boy's offering me a cigarette, only this time I felt good about it. I loved shocking people with what I could do - it was a beautiful reminder of my superiority.

"Two weeks more," he said finally, and the cocky edge to his voice had gone. "How the hell..."

I interrupted. "You're Farmer Lovett's grandson, staying for the summer at your Mother's request because you owe him for paying your university fees at Princeton University New Jersey..."

The boy blinked, and gave a nervous bark of laughter. "Is this a prank? Seriously, like one of those MTV reality shows where they give you all the details beforehand and make people look like total assholes?"

"You're not on the best of terms with the old man but you came anyway; most likely to appease your Mother than because you're genuinely grateful."

He had yet to interrupt me, which usually meant one thing - I was right on all counts. We were in the midst of another pause - the longest yet. I could see the boy's brain trying to mull over what he'd just heard and make some sense from it, but not managing especially well. I certainly wasn't expecting his eventual reaction - his mouth crept slowly into a smile which grew wider and wider by the second. Then, he began to laugh.

"Jesus Christ, you're a bright spark aren't you?"

Assumedly this was a compliment. I shrugged.

"How did you guess all that?"

"I didn't guess," I told him haughtily, "I saw."

"Okay then Bright Spark..." The boy was smiling again, but cunningly this time. "Take me through step-by-step. If you didn't guess and you're not employed by CBS then prove it!"

I considered myself officially challenged.

"Your accent says a lot," I started. "As does the packet of Atlantic City-brand cigarettes in your hand, so New Jersey it is then - more specifically Princeton University."

"There's more than one college in New Jersey," the boy said, but he was still smiling. "What makes you so sure it's Princeton?"

"Your Grandfather's comedic bumper sticker," I told him. "A gift from Yours Truly was it? - 'I'm an Ivy League Grampa'."

"Could be from a different grandchild..."

"Impossible." For this nugget of wisdom, I had my Mother and her knowledge inside and out of the villagers to thank. "Farmer Lovett only had one child - a daughter- and you said yourself you're an only child." I stretched my arms out in front of me before continuing. "There are eight 'Ivy League' universities in the States: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, Columbia, Pennsylvania and Cornell, one of which falls in the state in question which would be Princeton, New Jersey."

"Alright," the boy conceded after a moment. "But how did you work out Gramps pays the fees?"

I smiled again to myself. This had been a masterstroke.

"Those boots," I said, pointing. "Pretty down-at-hell; well worn, I should say, _very_ well worn. You don't wear them because you want to - why would you, it's stifling out here. No, you _have_ to wear those boots because you don't have much else _to_ wear. So your parents aren't well-off; they bought you the boots years back -they're not a new model; released three...maybe four years ago- so they bought them knowing they'd last you a while." I cocked my head to one side, struggling not to smile at the bemused expression on his face.

"As I said, your parents aren't rich, so who pays the Ivy League fees? Most likely your grandfather -on principle I should say rather than family affection; you're clearly not close enough for him to be giving you a clothing allowance, but your Mother sends you here over the summer to stay by way of thanks. Obvious."

"So basically," the boy said, "you guessed!" He was laughing again, but heartily this time, and without any unease.

I couldn't help but smile. For the first time since I'd begun speaking, I looked over and met his eye.

"Was I right?" The adrenaline was already pumping, coursing through my veins, but a confirmation would be the cherry on the cake. It was almost case of life or death - if I'd been right, my mood would soar, if not I would crash and burn.

"Yeah, yeah, 100% freaking percent, A+, gold star!" The sincerity of his smile belied any hint of sarcasm. He'd pulled another cigarette from the packet and was in the process of lighting it. Despite my previous declination, I couldn't seem to drag my eyes away from the steadily-glowing tip as he worked the opposite end between his teeth, sucking in deep mouthfuls to kindle the embers below. He saw me looking, took it out, and held it out to me.

"You only live once, Spark. Give it a go - you might like it!"

I was tempted, and not just by what he was offering. Was it a kindred spirit I recognised in this strange, charming American who had somehow commanded my attention for longer than anyone had succeeded in doing in years...? Or was it that he seemed genuinely interested to talk to me too? Distracted, I looked to my watch and saw that it was getting on for five thirty. I'd been sitting here for more than an hour. That in itself was puzzling - I hadn't let time get away from me like this for a long time, and yet here I was contemplating cigarettes beneath the branches of a beech tree with a young man I'd met barely an hour ago and whose name I had yet to learn.

With new vision, I considered the cigarette. It was just one puff. I'd not tried it before, though I'd always been tempted. Addiction didn't scare me either - if anything it would be one area of my life guaranteed not to change; something I could depend upon; something I'd _have_ to depend upon. No, it was not the threat of addiction which stopped me, but that of what it would cost. The price of tobacco rose annually I was well aware, and with Mother's condition to attend to, packet after packet of cigarettes was a luxury I knew I couldn't afford.

So I shook my head and turned my eyes back to the horizon, hoping the boy could see how regretfully I'd turned down his offer for a second time.

"Ah," the boy puffed away on the fag-end happily. "Your loss. Any money you like you'll try it one day and love it!"

"I expect so. No time now anyway..." I got to my feet and stretched out, noticing that the boy's head had snapped up to watch me.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"Home." I must have been staring longingly at the cigarette in his hand because he smiled and reached into the pack again.

"Tell you what," he said, and pulled out another cigarette - the last remaining in the packet. "I'll let you have one all to yourself if you stay here a while and tell me a little bit about you..."

Again, I was sorely tempted; both by the chance to smoke and (dare I say it) the chance to stay and talk to the boy a little while longer, but I felt as though I needed to clear my head. The last hour of my day had certainly proved more interesting than the other eleven before it...

"I don't think so." But I reached over and plucked the cigarette from his hand, tucking it into my pocket with Mycroft's money, and watching as the boy's face broke once more into a cheeky grin. Was it a promise I'd see him again? Perhaps it was a wish, for my part certainly. I had little else to do all day, and this American...he was interesting.

"See you later..."

"Hey."

I looked back at him and saw he was grinning again.

"I'm Ethan Archer," he said, winking. "Maybe I'll see you around sometime Spark..."


End file.
